CARMEL, Ind. — MISO will suspend updates on its resource availability and need (RAN) project through November to allow time for analysis that may drive future draft rules.

During a Resource Adequacy Subcommittee meeting Wednesday, MISO planning adviser Davey Lopez said the RTO will skip the monthly RAN presentation at next month’s meeting to analyze its loss-of-load methodology, a possible seasonal auction and new capacity accreditation for planning resources.

By the first half of 2020, MISO expects to finish a filing to alter capacity accreditation.

MISO is mulling an available capacity estimate that includes a measure of historical availability and the impact of planned and maintenance outages in addition to already-counted forced outages. The RTO is also considering distinct accreditations for intermittent, load-modifying and emergency-only resources.

MISO also wants its loss-of-load expectation modeling “more closely aligned to the real world,” Lopez said. The new LOLE may rely on seasonal data and might become a seasonal result itself. More detailed data, including extreme weather scenarios, historical outages, actual load-modifying resource participation, external assistance from neighboring balancing authorities and the capabilities of intermittent resources may be incorporated.

Customized Energy Solutions’ Ted Kuhn urged MISO to be innovative in adjusting or redefining seasons. He said it might be that September is found to be sufficiently risky that it warrants a spot among the summer months, or a separate loss-of-load risk might need to be defined for winter.

“Just be thoughtful when you go through these, and don’t straight jacket solutions,” Kuhn urged.

Lopez said MISO will examine monthly risk and whether it should change the calculations behind its planning reserve margin and local reliability requirements.

MISO’s fall pause doesn’t mean other smaller RAN initiatives are on hold. The RTO expects to make a filing by October to improve the modeling of LMR participation in the capacity auction and create “reasonable expectations” for capacity availability during the planning year.

New PRA Deadlines Before FERC

MISO has filed with FERC to shift the offer window times and data submission deadlines for its Planning Resource Auction (ER19-2559).

The changes would allow more time for market participants to prepare data submittals to MISO and end the RTO’s middle-of-the-night closings and openings of the offer window.

MISO Manager of Capacity Market Administration Eric Thoms said the RTO expects a FERC ruling before the RASC meeting Oct. 9.

The filing would take effect beginning with the 2020/21 PRA, altering deadlines for demand response testing, submission of generator verification testing data, behind-the-meter registration, unforced capacity values and the posting of preliminary auction data. In most cases, the deadlines would be extended into the winter from late fall. (See “Timeline Change Next Year,” MISO Ponders Changes After Latest PRA.)

MISO is also proposing to open and close the offer window during normal business hours instead of the usual midnight-to-midnight run of the four-day window. The RTO requested permission to open the offer window at 8 a.m. ET and close at 6 p.m.

Thoms also said the RTO is readying the 2020/21 PRA in MISO software.

CONE Increases

MISO also filed its annual update of cost of new entry values this week, with prices up over last year’s estimates across all local resource zones (ER19-2781).

This year, staff and the Independent Market Monitor calculated the CONE at an average $251/MW-day for the entire footprint. Last year, the average CONE was about $238/MW-day footprint-wide.

Arkansas and East Texas’ Zone 9 has the lowest CONE value of about $237/MW-day, while Lower Michigan’s Zone 7 has the highest, with about $258/MW-day.

MISO’s CONE is used as the RTO’s maximum clearing price and maximum clearing offer in the PRA. CONE represents the estimated cost of constructing a 237-MW combustion turbine in different locations in the footprint.

Stakeholders asked why CONE numbers were up year-over-year. To that, MISO adviser Michael Robinson pointed to the philosophy behind Isaac Newton’s and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s calculus of infinitesimals.

Robinson said “several contributing factors” — including small upticks in cost of debt, operation and maintenance costs, and tax rates — contributed to the increase.

“When you add them all up, it contributes to about a 5 to 6% increase,” he said.

Wind, Solar, Storage Focus of New Deliverability Proposal

MISO will move ahead with a stricter capacity deliverability requirement for its intermittent planning resources.

“This is something we’re going forward with, so it’s not up for debate if we are or aren’t going to do this,” MISO’s Darrin Landstrom said.

Landstrom said MISO would return with a proposal and examples at the Oct. 9 RASC meeting.

According to the RTO, stakeholders were most receptive to an approach that would use an intermittent resource’s transmission service request value as the maximum output for calculating the average capacity factor, which would reduce capacity credits. (See MISO Deliverability Plan Prompts Skepticism.)

MISO expects to make a FERC filing in December. The proposal would only apply to wind, solar and electric storage resources that offer capacity beginning in the 2020/21 planning year. The RTO draws a distinction between conventional and intermittent resources for deliverability.

Still, some MISO stakeholders maintained last week that the RTO has not demonstrated its current process is causing stranded intermittent capacity during peak hours.

But Landstrom said the proposal will stave off potential problems from MISO assuming planning resources will perform to an installed capacity deliverability level when they’re only required to demonstrate deliverability up to an unforced capacity level.

“The IMM [and] FERC have recommended we close this gap, and MISO agrees with them,” Landstrom said.

— Amanda Durish Cook